For Whom the Doves Cry
by insomniac-od
Summary: Seras ponders all that she has lost from the battle with Joleen.


**For whom the Doves Cry**

"Well, sleep well," stammered Integra somewhat awkwardly as she began to leave the room.

Thinking the better of it, she turned just as she was about to cross the doorway. "Are you sure you will be alright on your own?"

The young vampire nodded listlessly. "I'll be alright. If you're worried I'll start crying again, I don't think I have any tears left," she said.

"I can't help worrying about you," replied Integra, too attempting to sound less weary than she was. "Do you want company? I can stay with you for a while longer."

Seras shook her head. "No, we both have had a hard day and if anything, you need your rest."

Integra sighed to no one in particular. Was it a blessing or pure thoughtlessness on his part that Alucard had been nowhere near Seras for the last two days? She did not feel good about leaving Seras alone in this state. Integra had suffered much deaths in her time but to be fair, she did not have the misfortune of losing someone as dear as Pip had been to Seras.

Although she almost did. Age had tipped things unfavorably for him considering the Captain's inhuman tolerance to pain. It was a good thing that Alucard had shown up in time to finish off their old nemesis.

"I really could stay a little longer."

"No thank you, sweet dreams to you Master Hellsing," replied Seras as she turned her back to Integra and lowered the lid on her coffin almost too quickly.

Seras bit her lip as she sensed Integra's confusion. She felt guilty at her rather brusque treatment of the other lady. Integra had meant to be kind but her master's master needed her rest and Seras, more so, solace to mourn.

She laid perfectly still in her coffin until she heard the muted footsteps outside her protective cocoon fade.

But it could not protect her from herself. Truly alone now in the darkness, she felt the hole in her heart tear open again.

His death scene played endlessly in her head, heightened by the eerie silence around her. She could almost smell his blood and her despair in the air again. Seras did not know whether to despair further or to feel comforted in his last words: "Don't cry. Smile for me. That's a good girl ... live for me, that is all I ask."

It was all too much for her to bear.

"Pip," she sobbed uncontrollably. Even as the dark hand of death took him, he was more concerned for her than for himself. Swallowing her sobs in a bid to honor his dying request, she tried to remind herself that he was probably somewhere happy now; somewhere quiet, where psychotic undead-s did not infest nor ever have the right to inhabit.

It was also somewhere a tainted soul like hers could never go.

They had buried the fallen Wild Geese earlier that evening. Despite the fact they were officially only mercenaries on the records, Integra insisted on burying those without family in the organisation's cemetery. They were given no less pomp and honor than that her own soldiers had been earlier accorded. There was only a handful but those with someone to cry for them were returned to their grieving families.

Seras did not know whether to be thankful or more heartbroken for him but Pip was one of those buried in the manor's grounds. The cemetery behind the manor, which she had always thought was too huge, was frightfully getting bigger.

Each and every tombstone was a reminder of what the Hellsing family stood for and the sacrifices that had been made to protect England from the undead. When would their numbers stop increasing?

She heard a clap of thunder roar outside. This was quickly followed by the soft patter of rain. Crying silently to sleep, she could not help wondering if time would ever reduce the pain.

In the rain, a figure in red stood surveying the tombstones before him. His line of vision descended from a window on the third floor to the ground and then finally back to a tombstone drenched in blood tears. Despite the rain, the blood clung stubbornly to the granite rock.

"Be thankful. The doves have wept for you."


End file.
